My flower came back to haunt me!

So a few years ago, I began an unhealthy relationship with a local artist who made amazing purses from tapestry fabric. I call it unhealthy because my addiction for her purses resulted in an amazing number of fabric purses popping up in my house. No one needs six to eight fabric purses per season. Really. You just don’t. It didn’t help that she sold at Eastern market every Saturday and I lived just a few blocks away. I was such a frequent customer, that I convinced her to make a purse just for knitters. She designed it to accommodate both knitters and new moms and it sold like crazy. I still have my giant knitters purse…you may have seen it at MSWF last year filled to the brim with yarn.

Well anyways, we became friends and Kristin started asking me questions like, “so how long would it take you to knit ____” and “how much would you charge to knit _____?” Finally she got around to telling me that she was envisioning a Spring line of purses with hand knit flowers and leaves sewn to them. Not realizing how much agony it would be to knit hundreds of leaves and flowers, I agreed to knit these little buggers in cotton (ick!) and was compensated with MORE PURSES. At the time, I thought this was all very grand, and I set out to produce my little flowers in mass. Now three, almost four years later, I am sitting in a class, and I look over at a student’s purse to see this cute little knitted flower on it. As I am about to say, “wow, that is adorable. You know I once knit a bunch of those flowers for this lady who made purses,” I realized that the damn flower was mine! There it was, sitting on a Frankie and Lu purse….strangest experience ever to actually see it on the arm of someone so many years later. Cute though, en’t it?

Well, Kristin moved to LA and closed down Frankie and Lu, although her bags can still be seen around town. I do spot them every once in awhile. It is so cool to talk to the people that I see using them. As a one woman show, Kristin maintained a great relationship with every one of her customers and they all get excited to meet someone else who knew her. We miss you Kristin!